“We just don’t get it right!”—Multimodal competence for resolving spatial conflict in wayfinding discourse

•I consider what words and deeds should count as “competent” in route instruction.•Intersubjective embodiment of comprehension is a key for resolving conflict.•We need to reconsider the skill-based, individual “communicative competence.”•Instead we should turn to practice-based, collaborative “competent communication.”

By focusing on the use of verbal and gestural spatial expressions in Japanese, I consider what words and deeds should count as “competent” in route instruction, where spatial locations and movements are the major concern. In wayfinding discourse, people frequently embody actual and virtual spaces through multiple channels in order to achieve and share mutual understanding with maximal efficiency. This study focuses on a major factor in the process—intersubjectivity—which is examined in terms of the merger of spatial frames of reference (FOR) and gestural representations. These phenomena urge us to reconsider the skill-based, individual-oriented concept of “communicative competence” and to expand the notion in terms of, and in favor of, a practice-based, collaboration-oriented form of “competent communication.”